Is Coteaching an Effective Way of Including Children With Special Educational Needs?

Abstract

Inclusive education is concerned with the effort to overcome barriers that prevent the participation and learning of all children, regardless of their ethnicity, gender, social background, sexuality, disability, or achievement. Inclusive education does not only focus on the barriers students face but focuses on the detailed development of educational cultures, policies, and practice systems as well as in educational institutions, so that they become capable of responding to the diversity of students and treat them equally. Co-teaching involves two or more certified professionals who contract to share instructional responsibility for a single group of students primarily in a single classroom or workspace for specific content or objectives with mutual ownership, pooled resources, and joint accountability. The aim of this chapter is to highlight the benefits of coteaching as an inclusive strategy.